Jerry Schniepp, CIF commissioner for the San Diego Section, has changed the high school postseason playoff structure. CAROLYNE CORELIS • U-T

Asked the most important thing he learned while coordinator of athletics for the Sweetwater Unified High School District for five years, the commissioner of the CIF San Diego Section, Jerry Schniepp, had a strong one-word answer.

“Communication,” said Schniepp, who in September will be starting his third year as the head of the 124-school section that governs high school athletics in San Diego and Imperial Counties.

“They were and are great people in the Sweetwater district but with 13 high schools and 11 middle schools, I had to learn how to coordinate things at a higher level — especially communication.”

It was a good thing that he developed that skill because when Schniepp was hired to oversee the section office, the one area he quickly found among the most challenging was communication.

“Because of what I learned from the Grossmont and Sweetwater districts, I came into the job as commissioner realizing that if I wanted to make any progress, I had to listen,” said Schniepp, a former baseball and football player at Helix High, class of 1981.

Schniepp stayed close to home after graduating from San Diego State, becoming the head baseball coach at Helix, a job he held for 10 years, during which time he captured a section title in 1988.

After administrative stints at El Cajon Valley and Santana highs, he was elevated to the Grossmont district office where he oversaw athletics as director of student services and activities.

The next stop was the Sweetwater district when, after three months as principal at Santana High, he was offered the position in the South Bay. He didn’t hesitate to take it and said he enjoyed every minute of his five years.

So, when he accepted the section commissioner’s job, he promptly set up five regional committees to get feedback on what administrators, coaches, parents and athletes wanted.

“I thought I understood the governing structure of the CIF,” he said, “but I quickly found out — absolutely not. The scope of what the section office does is huge. We have 30 or 40 districts and eight conferences.

“But we (he quickly tabbed longtime athletic director John Labeta as his assistant) listened and took notes. Some of those meetings were more heated than others.”

Schniepp says his stay as commissioner might have been brief had he not known that the most vexing of things plaguing the previous administration — the transfer rules — would be undergoing a major change at the state level that would strongly impact the section.

No sooner was he settled in than the state adopted the current rule that says those athletes wishing to switch schools without a change in residence would be allowed to do so after a 30-day waiting period at the beginning of each sport, provided there was no pre-enrollment contact.

Schniepp was then able to address other issues with five more committees out of which has come the most daring of all of his efforts: Changing the postseason playoffs in all team sports from being enrollment-based to performance-based.